Faction Retinues

Faction Retinues

A rules reference for the standing groups of faction personnel each of you now commands. Each retinue has its own page with the letter that came with it, the people in it, and their current postings — this page covers how they work in general.

Each faction calls its own group something different — the Order of the Gauntlet and the Dawnbringers say lance, the Harpers say cell, the Zhentarim say crew, the Talons of Veylan say flight, the Scales of Eldath say hearth. "Retinue" is just the common word for all of them.

What a retinue is

On reaching Rank 3 with a faction, you are given people. Not adventurers, and not soldiers you take into a dungeon — competent professionals who do your faction's work, at a distance, on your instructions.

They are a standing asset, like a stronghold or a magic item. They persist between sessions, they can be moved, and they can be lost. Higher ranks bring larger commands.

Size

Your retinue numbers a complement equal to your proficiency bonus, plus a leader who is not counted.

Character level	Complement
5–8	3
9–12 (now)	4
13–16	5
17+	6

The increase is automatic. Your faction sends another body when your standing warrants it; there is no ceremony and nothing to spend.

Your squire does not count against this. Squires may run messages or act as liaison without consuming a slot.

The leader stays home

Every retinue has a leader, and that leader remains at Nuts Deep. They do not travel, they do not take field assignments, and they cannot be redeployed. They run the retinue, hold its facility at the fort, and are the person you actually give instructions to.

Retinue	Leader	Where they sit
The Anvil	Knight-Sergeant Bertrand Kell	The fort
The Nightingales	Merrivet Ashcombe	The fort, reading the notebook
Talonfall	Nettle	The treeline outside the walls. She does not come indoors.
The Broken Latch	Ollam Pryce	The fort, handling freight
The Hearthwardens	Aldith Fenn	The fort, running the yard
The Dawnwatch	Brother Ovid Morningward	The fort, keeping the flame

Postings and movement

Every member of your retinue is either posted somewhere doing a job, or in transit. A member in transit is doing nothing for you.

Moving someone	Time
Within the same settlement	Hours
Within a region	3–5 days
Across the Sword Coast	10 days or more

Move them rarely and on purpose. Where someone is standing usually matters more than what you asked them to do — a Harper agent already in the city will find things no archive holds, and a Talon posted on a road knows what crossed it.

A posted member also works on their own initiative. Expect occasional reports and results you did not ask for; these cost you nothing.

Giving orders

Tell your retinue's leader what you want. Each retinue has its own list of standing orders (below).

• Routine work in their specialty simply happens. They are professionals. No roll.
• Contested or dangerous work may fail. The DM will resolve it. Outcomes range from clean success, to success at a cost — a delay, a debt, an injury, the wrong sort of attention — down to outright failure.
• Bad failures cost you a person. See below.

They do not fight beside you

A retinue never appears in initiative. They do not take turns, they do not have stat blocks at the table, and they are not a second party.

If violence reaches them, it is resolved as above rather than played out. If one happens to be present at a fight you are in, they are worth a single narrated effect — holding a doorway, telling you where the second group is coming from — declared by the DM, not rolled.

They also do not adventure. Taking your retinue into the kind of place this company works in will get them killed, and every one of your faction's letters says so.

Losing people

People in a retinue can be killed, captured, bought, or burned. Each faction's people break differently, and it is worth knowing which way yours will go — your letter tells you.

Replacing someone takes a downtime week and your faction's willingness. A faction unhappy with you can simply decline to send anyone.

Upkeep

Between adventures, tell the DM where each of your people is standing and what they are doing. That is all the bookkeeping there is.

The six retinues

Retinue	Held by	Faction	Standing orders
The Anvil	Xanphina	Order of the Gauntlet	Hold — set them on a place and it stays held · Escort — what they escort arrives · Lend — detach them to an ally, which counts as your company's work
The Nightingales	Gootcha	Harpers	The notebook — one open question at a time, answered in anything from ten minutes to ten days depending on what you asked · The field — an agent posted where you are asking makes the answer far faster and far better
Talonfall	Keyleth	Talons of Veylan	Watch — you learn what moves through a place before it reaches you · Guide — safe passage through bad country · Cull — they hunt and kill a named target, nothing older or larger than a young wyrm, and it takes weeks
The Broken Latch	Shade	Zhentarim	Move — anything or anyone, unrecorded · Acquire — buy what is not for sale, including magic, on a timetable by rarity · Lean — pressure a person or business until it reconsiders
The Hearthwardens	Karma	Scales of Eldath	Mollify — a village the Cult is working on does not turn · Forage — name the kind of reagent and they find it · Tend — one week rebuilding a hurt place, which earns lasting goodwill
The Dawnwatch	Baelgrum	Dawnbringers	Consecrate — ground the undead and infernal find no purchase on · Ward — warning of undead and fiends before they arrive · Carry the light — hope to the frightened and the beset · 'not yet conferred'

The Dawnwatch has not been conferred. Baelgrum has not yet reached the rank that grants it. The page exists so he can read what is coming.

Goodwill

The Hearthwardens' Tend order earns goodwill with the places they rebuild, recorded on the Council Disposition Tracker.

Goodwill extends to associates — every retinue and every squire. A village Karma's people put back together will shelter a Nightingale, walk a Talon to the right trailhead, and forget it saw either, without asking whose they are.

See also

• The Anvil · The Nightingales · Talonfall · The Broken Latch · The Hearthwardens · The Dawnwatch
• Renown Tracker — the ranks that grant these
• Council Disposition Tracker — goodwill and coalition standing
• Nuts Deep — where every retinue's leader sits
• House Rules